Starting down the 14001 road.

[Tom W]

We are looking to being working towards registration to 14001. To this point we have wanted to be compliant but not registered; however we now have decided to obtain registration by the end of 2005. Any suggestions for resources that might be of some help? Currently TS2 registered and have a ever growing safety and environmental program going. Kind-of taking one topic at a time approach with the safety and environmental issues. Any advise would be great. Thanks.

 

[db]

1) Focus on your aspects. Marilyn Block has a book Identifying Environmental Aspects and Impacts. It has some good information.
2) Use as much of your TS as you can (doc control, management review, etc)
3) Keep the sytem small and useful

Hope that helps.

Oh, I forgot, go to the DEQ's page at: http://www.michigan.gov/deq On the right side, you will find a link to the Manufacturer's Guide. It has a lot of compliance information.

 

[Tom W]

Thanks for the info. I anticipate this being a challenging road to travel.

 

[isogirl - 2004]

I am currently working on our procedure for identifying aspects.

We received a minor nonconformance during our on-site review for not being more specific about how we determined significant aspects in our procedure.

Be thorough in your identification process and be able to explain it.

Also, an environmental compliance audit helped us a lot in identifying our legal requirements.

 

[Mike Smith]

Information on ISO14001

Pennsylvania DEP website has a lot of good information on ISO14001. It includes Fords EMS implementation manual and Pfizers environmental procedures. Here is the link.

http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/pollprev/iso14001/isocompanies.htm

 

[Randy]

Good advice Mike...I always recommend the Penn DEP 14K site to my classes.

Tom....If you already have TS in place a good deal of the hard work is done...Doc control, internal audit system, and a few others.

Marilyn Block's book is OK as a reference and starting point. The real management and improvement begins with identifying your aspects. Don't go crazy or too deep. Identify your processes and use something like FMEA. What you are looking for is a cause (aspect) and effect (impact) relationship. What do you do, make or perform that has or can have an effect (positive or negative) on the environment (look up the definition of environment in ISO 14001).

Start there...also don't get wrapped around the axel with compliance gibberish (it's an element).


Also look into the N Carolina EPA site as well as the Michigan one. Use the SEARCH button here too.

 

[Bill Ryan - 2007]

Good luck Tom

We just had our 14001 registration audit a week ago and came out of it with one minor and one OFI. I can't really give you much right now as I wasn't very involved with setting up our system (for a change!). If you have specific questions I'm sure I can ask our MR (who did 99% of the work) how we addressed an issue - that goes for everyone. We did hire a company called Management Solutions (out of Michigan) and I know they were a key part of getting us through it (we also use them twice a year as our "official" Internal Auditors of our QMS).

Bill

 

[Randy]

Tom,

I was just up in your neck of the woods a couple of weeks ago (had to help out a small company called Electrolux in Greenville & stayed at the Airport Hilton there in GR). Take the advice of the good folks here with the websites, use this site to the maximum, save some bucks and refrain from hiring some high cost slick talking charlaton (like me) as long as possible (own the system).

Like I said, you've got a bunch of the hard stuff done already....use it!!!

 

[Tom W]

Tom,

I was just up in your neck of the woods a couple of weeks ago (had to help out a small company called Electrolux in Greenville & stayed at the Airport Hilton there in GR). Take the advice of the good folks here with the websites, use this site to the maximum, save some bucks and refrain from hiring some high cost slick talking charlaton (like me) as long as possible (own the system).

Like I said, you've got a bunch of the hard stuff done already....use it!!!

Thanks for all of the feedback. I am definitely in the collecting info mode right now and all of this info is going to help. I hope you had a good time up here Randy - all of the rain and cold weather must have been a downer. But then again it is November in Michigan! It could have been two feet of snow.

 

[Randy]

It was starting to get a little chilly when I was there, and the Hilton had a great small combo that did music by request.

Take you system a small step at a time, get everyone involved (real teaming) in the aspects thing and the rest too.